


The Naming

by wheel_pen



Series: Finn [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Clones, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 16:53:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4529715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock’s little clone decides on a new name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Naming

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored. That’s just how I do things.
> 
> This story has not been Britpicked. Please let me know if I get anything horribly wrong.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

“Here you go.” John set the sandwich on its plate beside the boy. “Oh, I thought you were going to work on your letters,” he prompted, noticing the open page of the handwriting book was still blank.

“I’m supposed to put my name on this line first,” Fif replied, pointing to the blank in question. He seemed to have a problem with this.

John did not see why. “Well, you can write your name, you’ve done it before,” he reminded him.

“It’s not _really_ a name, though,” the boy claimed sadly. “It’s just a number.”

John turned his attention to the table’s other occupant, who was sitting at his microscope examining what appeared to be an insect. Sherlock wanted to pretend he was innocent, and wasn’t listening in any case; but he made the mistake of looking up and John gave him a glare. “You just forget about that,” John advised the boy. “Fif is a perfectly good name.”

“It makes me think of being back at that place,” the boy admitted quietly.

“Oh. Really?” John decided this was now a more serious conversation and sat down in the chair next to him. “Well, um, if you want to change it because of that, that would be alright. Wouldn’t it, Sherlock?” He didn’t get an answer and glanced over to see the other man gripping the knob of the microscope tightly, his jaw clenched as though in anger. John knew the reference to the boy’s captivity bothered him greatly, even if he liked to dismiss it as past. “Sherlock?” Gently John touched his tensed hand.

Sherlock forced himself to relax. “Hmm? Oh, fine. If you must. Make it easy to remember.”

“What sort of name would be easy to remember?” John asked in confusion.

“Like… Molly,” Sherlock suggested seriously.

John blinked at him. “Molly is a girl’s name,” he was forced to point out. “And we already know someone named Molly.”

“That’s what would make it easy to remember,” Sherlock explained in a patronizing tone, going back to his insect. “Fewer options to run through.”

“Don’t listen to him,” John told the boy, turning back to him. “What sort of name would _you_ like?”

He had clearly been giving it some thought. “I think it ought to start with an _eff_ ,” he decided. “I’m used to that.”

“Very sensible,” John agreed.

“What sort of names start with an _eff_?” the boy wanted to know, and naturally John’s mind went completely blank.

“Um—well—uh… Phillip?” he tried.

Sherlock sat up from his microscope with a frown. “That doesn’t start with an _eff_ , does it?” he demanded.

John was well aware of this, of course. “Functionally,” he said defensively.

Sherlock’s frown deepened. “That’s not a name at all. Is it?”

John sighed. “Um… Frank, um… Francis…” He tried some different letter combinations, hoping this would jumpstart his brain. “Freddy, Filbert, Forrest, um… Floyd…”

“ _Really_ , John?” Sherlock complained. He and Fif were giving him identical unimpressed looks.

“Well, Google it, then,” John suggested in exasperation. Then inspiration struck. “Finn,” he announced.

“Is that a name?” Sherlock criticized. “It doesn’t sound like one.”

“It’s a perfectly legitimate name,” John insisted. “And considering you wanted to name him Molly, I hardly think _your_ taste can be trusted.” He wrote ‘Finn’ on a blank page of the boy’s book. “There. What do you think of that?”

“Fin-enn?” the boy tried, pronouncing both _enns_.

“No, just Finn,” John corrected.

“Why’s it got two _enns_ , then?”

“It has _two_ _enns_?” Sherlock protested. “That’s unnecessary.”

John was not going to get into an etymology discussion about it. “It has two _enns_ because it’s short for Finnegan,” he claimed on the spot. He wrote the longer name out. “See? F-I-N-N. What do you think? We can keep looking,” he offered.

“I like it,” the boy decided thoughtfully. “I like that it has _enns_ , like ‘John.’”

John felt suddenly flattered by this, though he wasn’t sure if he should be. “Yes, it does,” he agreed. He thought he saw a brief smile ghost over Sherlock’s face behind the microscope, and this distracted him. “Er, do you want to try writing it?” he added hurriedly to the boy.

“Alright,” Finn agreed. Studiously he copied the letters John had written a few times. “Can you write your name again?” he asked. John had to pause to wipe peanut butter off his hands, which the boy seemed to interpret as reluctance. “I remember it starts with a _jay_ , and there’s also an _enn_ , but the middle bits are mixed up,” he confessed.

“It’s alright,” John assured him, printing his name in the book. “It’s short, but it’s a bit tricky, what with that random _aych_.”

“Shouldn’t it be _Joan_?” Finn suggested. “That’s the sound _oh_ and _aych_ usually make together.”

“Names are funny that way,” John shrugged. “But you’re very clever to—“

“Oh my G-d,” Sherlock suddenly exclaimed, sounding slightly distressed. John hoped the insect hadn’t started moving again. “I’m never going to remember it now!”

John had little hope that Sherlock was telling a joke, though he wanted to laugh anyway just at his expression. “Sherlock, it’s one of the most common male names in the Western world,” he just had to point out. “And you’ve been calling me it for years. Are you seriously going to get mixed up _now_?”

Sherlock sighed and looked slightly put out. “Well, I never thought about it before,” he confessed defensively. “O-H _should_ sound like ‘Joan.’”

John snorted and turned back to Finn, only to see the boy giving him an expectant frown. Sherlock’s expression was disturbingly similar. “Well, it doesn’t,” he insisted, feeling slightly besieged. “It’s _my_ name, I know how it’s pronounced. And it’s _John_ ,” he added, because apparently this wasn’t clear. “Alright, let’s talk about _your_ name, _Sherlock_ ,” he felt compelled to continue. It couldn’t have been easy growing up Sherlock and Mycroft in a world of Brian and James and usually John just pretended they were perfectly normal names; but if Sherlock was going to take exception to _his_ name, he could fight back.

Sherlock shrugged, unperturbed. “It’s quite sound, as far as pronunciation goes,” he judged. “Granted, the _cee_ and the _kay_ are somewhat redundant, but that’s a common combination in the English language.”

Finn was boggling at him. “It has a _cee_ _and_ a _kay_?” he asked with some alarm. “How’s it spelled, then?”

John sat still with his tea, waiting for Sherlock to prove himself. He wasn’t going to write the man’s own _name_ for him. With ill grace Sherlock took the boy’s book and a pencil and wrote his name on the blank page. “There. Quite easy, really.”

“I can’t read that,” Finn judged. “The letters are all loopy and stuck together.”

“ _What_?” Sherlock asked, as though he’d started speaking another language.

“You’ve got to print,” John pointed out. “He can’t read cursive.” Okay, he could understand Sherlock not thinking about that, but the man didn’t have to stare at them as though he’d been asked to render his name in Japanese.

“It’s—How could you not be able to read that?” Sherlock protested, completely confused. “It’s really no different—“

John saw Finn’s eyes narrow and tried to swoop in. “Here, why don’t I—“

“It’s _completely_ different,” Finn insisted hotly.

“Look, here it is,” John intruded, having printed Sherlock’s name on the page. “There you go.”

“It starts with an _ess_?” Finn noted. “This fat, loopy thing isn’t an _ess_! This isn’t an _ee_ , it’s just a little loop. And _ells_ are straight sticks, not _big_ loops! And this bump, why should that be an _arr_? It’s just a bump!”

“Well, it’s just a different way of writing—“ John tried to explain. Warily he glanced at Sherlock, afraid he was getting angry as well.

Instead the other man buried his face in his hands. “Oh my G-d!” he huffed in defeat, and a slow smirk spread across John’s face.

“You’re not gonna be able to read cursive from now on, are you?” he guessed.

“No, Joan, I’m not—G-d.” Finn started to laugh and so did John, although Sherlock seemed completely serious, and rather peeved at them both.

John finally took pity on him. “Go on, work on your letters some more,” he encouraged Finn. “Then perhaps we’ll go downstairs and see if Mrs. Hudson is doing anything interesting.”

“Oh, alright,” Finn agreed with enthusiasm. “Will she have chocolate biscuits, do you think?”

“We can ask,” John hedged.

Finn traced over the letters carefully and practiced writing them on the blank lines. Capital _gees_ were harder than John had realized, apparently. Discreetly he tried making some on the corner of his newspaper and found, to his consternation, that they were quite malformed compared to the ones in the handwriting book. And yes, that _did_ seem to be a smirk on Sherlock’s face when he noticed. John smacked him with an advert insert before starting to clean up the kitchen.

“John,” said Finn.

“Yes?”

“Sherlock.”

“What?” asked Sherlock with some annoyance, poking at the insect with a sharp instrument.

Nothing further was forthcoming, and John smiled a little. “The names work, I guess,” he surmised. “Finn.” No response. He turned to see the boy staring thoughtfully at his book. “Finn,” he prompted, and finally poked at him.

“Oh, that’s me,” Finn realized.

“Are we doing roll call now?” Sherlock asked intemperately. Obviously something about his insect was upsetting him; he looked like he was trying to dissect it under the lens of the microscope.

“Sherlock is difficult,” Finn judged.

“He means well,” John tried to tell him, and the boy blinked at him.

“It’s difficult to _say_ ,” Finn clarified.

“Oh. I suppose.”

“No, it’s not,” Sherlock argued. “What’s difficult about it?” Then he made a noise of frustration, and John looked over and grimaced.

“G-d, Sherlock, no, stop doing that at the table,” he ordered, seeing the extremely unappetizing insides of the bug laid out for all to examine. “That’s disgusting.”

Finn popped up immediately for a closer look. “What kind of insect is that?” he wanted to know, fascinated rather than repulsed. “What are those shiny parts inside?”

“Foregut, midgut, hindgut,” Sherlock pointed out professionally. “Those are the Malpighian tubules. Why is ‘Sherlock’ difficult to say?” He was now preoccupied by this point.

Finn shrugged, stretching up on his toes to see the insect better, and Sherlock picked him up and set him on his lap so he could look through the microscope. “Is this a _dung beetle_?” he wanted to know.

“No, it’s a bloody-nosed beetle,” Sherlock replied.

John turned back to them. “You’re making that up,” he accused, as Finn laughed at the name.

“No, I’m not,” Sherlock claimed innocently. “That’s what it’s called. It’s _Timarcha tenebricosa_. Look it up.”

John rolled his eyes. “Oh, sure, you can pronounce random insect Latin names perfectly, but you have trouble with _John_.”

Sherlock’s look indicated he was going to make John sorry if this kept coming up. John’s look in return said he should just go ahead and try, because it was way too entertaining to forget about. Sherlock’s _next_ look seemed like it might be going somewhere rather interesting, but then Finn commented idly, “Mrs. Hudson called you my daddy,” and all looks immediately screeched to a halt.

“Um, what?” John asked. Sherlock’s face was curiously expressionless now.

“She said I was going to like living with my daddy and John,” Finn expanded cheerfully. “Where were the _Mal-piggy tubes_ again?”

“Malpighian tubules,” Sherlock corrected, adjusting the insect in his view.

“Daddy is much easier to say than Sherlock,” Finn went on. “People have daddies… Don’t they?” He sounded slightly worried suddenly, and turned away from the instrument to look up at Sherlock.

John would have pegged Sherlock for having a silent panic attack at the thought of being called ‘daddy,’ at the thought of even _being_ a daddy, and his mind desperately churned for a way to intervene. But some other part of him really wanted to hear what Sherlock would say, and it kept him silent and still by the sink.

“It’s… generally a biological necessity,” Sherlock allowed awkwardly. “Well, for higher forms of animal life, plants and microbes can—Mmm.” Amazingly, he redirected himself. “What do you think, John?” he asked unexpectedly, pinning the other man with an unreadable look.

John thought about suggesting they have this conversation later, when Finn wasn’t around to glance sharply between them. But he had the feeling that if they delayed it, it might never be resolved. “I think… it would make sense to other people,” he finally said, slowly. You couldn’t _really_ be your clone’s father, right? They were more like… identical twins. But thirty years apart in age.

Yeah, ‘daddy’ was a lot easier. And was what most people would assume anyway, just seeing them together. Couldn’t exactly explain about the cloning business, after all.

“Well. We should try to be sensible,” Sherlock decided. He tone was very noncommittal, however. “Do you want to call John anything else?” he checked politely.

“No, I like _John_ ,” Finn judged. “It’s got an _enn_ in it, like _Finn_.”

“Okay then.”

This time he gave John a look that was slightly frantic, and John swooped in to pick Finn up from his lap. “Alright! New names, how exciting. Let’s go wash your hands, since you’ve been touching insects, and then we’ll go see Mrs. Hudson and tell her all about it, shall we?” He hoped the visit would give Sherlock sufficient time to recover.


End file.
